1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an interactive probe card design process. In particular, this invention allows for the design of customized probe cards by utilization of an automated procedure available through the Internet.
2. Description of Related Art
Individual integrated circuit devices (dies) are typically produced by creating several identical devices on a semiconductor wafer. In general, these processes are intended to create a plurality of fully functional integrated circuit devices prior to severing the individual dies from the semiconductor wafer. In practice, however, certain physical defects in the wafer itself and certain defects in the processing of the wafer inevitably lead to some of the dies being “good” (fully-functional) and some of the dies being “bad” (non-functional or partially functional). It is generally desirable to be able to identify which of the plurality of dies on a wafer are good dies prior to final packaging, and preferably prior to the die being severed from the wafer. To this end, a wafer “tester” or “probe” may advantageously be employed to make a plurality of discrete pressure connections to a like plurality of discrete connection pads (bond pads) on the dies. In this manner, the semiconductor dies can be tested and exercised, prior to severing the dies from the wafer. A conventional component of a wafer tester is a “probe card.” The probe card has a plurality of probe elements for effecting connections to the respective bond pads of the semiconductor dies for testing.
Historically, the manufacturing design phase for probe cards has necessarily involved significant, and often extensive and time-consuming, substantive communications between the customers and probe card manufacturers, for example, the interactions necessary to reach the desired design specifications, implementations and fabrication constraints necessary to finalize the probe card design. Although a probe card manufacturer engineer may receive several work orders at a given time, the actual design of a particular probe card cannot begin until a certain amount of customer-specific design information is provided. Preferably, actual design does not begin until all design specifications are confirmed with the customer. Next, the engineer must develop a design satisfying these specifications and again confirm the acceptability of the design with the customer.
The advent of the Internet has potentially expedited the design process by allowing probe card manufacturers to more readily communicate with their customers. In particular, websites maintained by current probe card manufacturers have enabled customers to send and confirm their design requirements via the Internet. Despite this communication advancement, an engineer must still physically design each probe card and await the respective customer approval of each design before manufacturing can begin. In order to improve upon this procedure, an on-line tool enabling customers to design their own probe cards is provided by this invention.